Savage Sons MC (London) - the complete series

Kate

There were flowers on my desk when I arrived at work. Beautiful, pale yellow ones. The kind that had always been my favourite. It was the first time he had sent flowers to my work and the first time he sent yellow roses. I didn’t know how to feel about either.

Yes, I had told him to stop with the yearly bouquet left on the doorstep, and I had meant it. I didn’t need the yearly reminder that my husband had died on this day ten years ago. I lived with that pain every single day, anyway. But seeing him again had thrown me. It had taken me back to a time when I had been so blissfully happy that I had thought foolishly that it would never end.

It had ended, though.

In the blink of an eye, all that happiness went away.

“Kate.”

I tore my eyes away from the roses that I had tossed in the bin the moment I had seen them, and my already melancholy mood took a nosedive.

Scraping back my chair, I rushed forward. “What the hell, Conner?”

Rushing towards the boy in front of me, I reached for his usually smooth skin. It wasn’t smooth anymore. There was blood crusted under his nose and on his lips. A yellow-purple bruise was darkening his left eye.

He flinched and ducked away before I could stop him. I dropped my hand to my side. He was almost as tall as I was now, and growing like a weed, but it had been a long time since he had looked so young and lost. No matter how tall he got, he was still a child, and I was in charge of his safety. Something I was clearly failing at if the state of his face was anything to go by.

“Why have you been fighting, Conner?” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but it wobbled a little. Conner was my brother-in-law, not my son, but I had raised him alone since his brother, Paul, my husband, had died. He’d had no one else, but if I was honest, I had needed him more than he needed me. He gave me a reason to get up every morning in the aftermath of Paul’s death.

Facing me, his face screwed up, and the cut opened up, seeping blood. He wiped it with the sleeve of his white school shirt, leaving a red stain.

“You always do this, Kate,” he growled out, his frustration evident. I got that because I was frustrated as well. At life, at myself, and at him. Because he just couldn’t seem to keep himself out of trouble.

“What do I do?”

“You blame me without even hearing my side of the story.” His slender shoulders were hunched. “It’s always my fault, isn’t it?” He blew out a breath. “Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have come here. I knew you wouldn’t care.”

I grabbed his shirt sleeve before he could rush out the door. “Conner.” His words cut into me. Was that what he believed? That I didn’t care? “Of course, I care.” Pulling him towards my desk, I pushed him into the chair that I usually worked from. “Tell me what happened.”

He didn’t answer me at first. Idly, he leaned forward, fidgeting with the stack of paper on my desk, moving them around. Trying not to lose my temper, I moved them away from him. I had a system, it might not be a good system, but it worked for me and I didn’t want him disorganising everything.

A control freak. That was me.

“Was it kids from school?”

Conner paused for a moment. I knew the look that flickered across his face. He was about to lie to me. At the very least, he was thinking about it.

“Conner, I can't help you if you don’t tell me the truth.”

“I tried to say no, Kate. I swear I did.”

My blood ran cold. He sounded so small and so scared.

“The Hunters?” I whispered the name like I was afraid the brothers would turn up if I said their name too loudly.

Conner’s silence was deafening.

Closing my eyes, I counted to five and then did it again and again until I felt my heartbeat go back to normal. If Conner was on their radar, then I really had failed as his guardian. The Hunter brothers were ruthless. They had their fingers in every pie on this side of the river, and their operations were booming. You couldn’t walk down the street without hearing the whispered rumours of drug deals and gun trafficking.

And beating on fifteen-year-old boys, it would seem.

What kind of man did that? Beat up little boys? Conner was a good kid. Deep down, he really was. He struggled; I wasn’t blind to that, but he had a heart of gold. I worked long hours to make sure we had what we needed, and that left him alone a lot of the time. It wasn’t surprising that some low-life gang had tried to sink their claws into him.

I wasn’t going to let them, though.

When I married Conner’s brother, I knew what I was taking on. And when Paul died in Afghanistan, there was never a doubt in my mind that I would raise his brother. I would be the family the boy needed.

I was the only family he had.

Hell, he was the only family I had.

“What have they been asking you to do?” I didn’t really want to know the answer, but I needed to know. I needed to know what I was up against and how far Conner was embroiled in it all.

His eyes skirted away. His face closed down.

“Conner.” The bark in my voice couldn’t be ignored, and he lifted his face guiltily. I steeled myself. One look at his face and I knew it was bad.

“I’ve done a few drop-offs.” He shrugged.

I inhaled sharply. “Drugs? You are dealing drugs?”

He shook his head vigorously. “Just envelopes. But I—”

It was going to get worse. I didn’t know how, but I knew it was. I did the counting thing again. Without it, I would probably succumb to one of the panic attacks that always overtook me in stressful situations. If I had one of those now, I would shut down. And if I did that, I would not be of any use to Conner.

“I dropped one.”

My eyes shut. Yep, I had known it was going to get worse.

“I didn’t mean to, and I looked for it.” His voice became almost hysterical. “I searched, Kate, but now—”

Blowing out a breath, my lips pursed. I had to calm myself. I was the adult here and Conner was the child. He was looking for me to make this better. He needed me to scare the scary men away.

“How much did you lose?” I didn’t have any savings. We lived paycheck to paycheck, but I could do overtime. The haulage company I worked for was always behind with their admin, so they would jump at any offer to stay later that I made.

“They won’t tell me, but they said I belong to them now.” His voice broke. “I told them I didn’t want to do it anymore, Kate. But they…” He motioned to his face.

Reaching out, I covered his hand with mine. “It’s going to be alright, Conner. I promise it’s going to be okay. I’ll sort it.”